12 – 4
With Leda come home to them, the last of the tethers keeping the Royah in place is undone. Now freed to move where and when they please, they all seem to reach the same conclusion without a single moment's discussion: far from this place, and right now. Even as they celebrate her return with warm, crushing hugs and relieved laughter, her people make ready to leave. One by one the hearthfires wink out as booted feet kick loose earth over their smoldering timbers, replaced by the wicking of golden lights from lanterns and hanging lamps. The paddock fence is taken down, the beasts of burden within a-grumble with sleepy complaints as they are led to harness and trace.
They have every right to leave. Every reason. I know this, and yet I cannot help the homesick longing that makes me wish they would stay. It's as if I'm back in that clearing, so scarce a handful of weeks past. This time, instead of me leaving my family, it is them leaving me.
It's not the same. Of course it isn't, but there is always that resentful place that insists it is better to dwell in anger than to wallow in heartache. I let that insistence drive me once. In doing so, I very nearly ruined something very precious to me: my relationship with Clarke. I may be a girl yet grown, maybe a foolish one, but I should think myself raised better than to make the same mistake twice.
So, I won't. I'll see my people off down the start of their winsome road and I'll do it with a smile on my face and a farewell in my heart. If there is one parting to be more sweet than bitter, let it be this one. Leda deserves as much. I look at Clarke, whose attention is unwavering on what unfolds before us. Then to Juliana, whose dark and narrow eyes are distant, her bearing distracted. Maybe we too deserve as much.
“Couldn't they wait?” Clarke asks. It's the first she's spoken since mother and daughter reunited.
“What for?” I ask, turning to her. There's some wistfulness in how she looks, some small yearning; though for what, I cannot name.
She shrugs and answers, “I...I don't know. Dawn? It's not far off.”
There it is again. In her voice this time. Juliana returns to us enough to say, “If you'd been through what they have, would – you – wait?”
Clarke needs only a moment to find her answer. “No,” she says, definite and sure. She watches my people hurry to make ready; to leave this place and all it's done to them behind. “I don't think I would.”
“I might,” I suppose, squeezing her hand, “if I had something to wait for.” She hums and, after a moment, shows me a short-lived smile and a quick glance. The strange silence fills with the dull, soothing rumble of wheels over earth and the lullaby-rattle of the wagons they carry; the gentle slap of leather-cord reins on the uncooperative hindquarters of oxen, horse, and mule; and the occasional shout of drivers trying to fill the same space at the same time. No cries of woken children split the air. They'll sleep through it all, wake somewhere completely new.
I did.
Leda at-the-reins peels their wagon away from the procession. The single ox pulling it is massive, the hump of his neck rising above the overhead reach of my arm. His thick fur is dark, save for the broad chest. There, a spray of gold brings some light. His horns are wide enough for a child's hammock to swing between. Eyes made black by the night catch some of the lamplight and gleam golden in their centers. He's beautiful. He's so, so beautiful. As Lenn and Leda jump down, I step forward to let his soft, short-haired nose press against my palm. My other hand slides from Clarke's grasp.
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“Not bad, hm?” Lenn asks, stopping at my side. Her hand disappears into the fur of the beast's neck.
“He's beautiful,” I answer. I keep the rest, that he reminds me so much of home, to myself.
She snorts, mouth twitching. Behind us, Leda is thanking Juliana and Clarke once more. She did not come to me. “He's a lump, is what he is.” Leda says fondly, scratching behind one of his huge ears. “A big, lazy lump.” I scratch the space between his eyes and he lets me. “Listen, about...before,” she's stilted and I look at her. Her graying hair and lined face, the eyes she gave her daughter. “I'm sorry. Thank you, and...thank you.” She takes a short breath to gather herself. “You will always have a seat at my hearth, should we meet again.”
Even as I thank her in return and accept her offer, I hear it. Leda's voice from behind me, affectionate and amused, “It would have been sweet, daughter of Valdenwood.”
I don't hear what Clarke says to answer her, nor how she says it. Jealousy howls through my mind. By the time I am clear of it, what I hear is this: a distant cry from the city's direction; a breathless and urgent Captain!
- - -
Upon the shout, Lenn and Leda move quickly. The mother cups my face in her hand, a final piece of gratitude in her dark eyes. The daughter leaps into the driver's seat and curls the reins around her hands. She casts the eyes her mother gave her at Clarke and Juliana and says, “Should we meet again,” with a dip of her head. For me, she has a teasing smile. “Quite the road, hm?”
“You've no idea,” I tell her, and she shakes her head, smile rising in the corner of her mouth. The cry echoes over misted grass. Closer now, more breathless and urgent now.
Cap-taaaaain!
Her eyes snap to the city, its gates ablaze with torchlight and a-scurry with movement. Her smile dies, mouth pulling into a thin, flat line. “Mother,” she says, just as flatly. “It's time.”
Lenn pats my cheek, nods, and turns to climb up next to her daughter. For the gray of her hair and the weather of her skin, she moves fast. Eager to be far from whatever trouble the echo heralds, I should think. Leda turns the ox's great head and clicks her tongue. A grumbling burble follows as the beast pulls the wagon around and away. I watch the lamps sway on their hooks and grow ever-more dim with every roll of the wheel.
Over the rattle of wheel and wagon, a farewell cry drifts back. “I might have – some – idea, little sister! Take care of yourself!”
I will, I promise her. My open palm presses to my heart, then out to face the shrinking lights. I will. The rising cloud of dust swallows them up. I doubt I will ever see them again. We are Royah, after all. From nowhere, and call it home. The pound of booted feet grows loud, the shift-and-clink of metal armor now heard. I close my eyes. Jealous or not, I will miss them. I've room enough in my heart.
The call comes a third and final time. It pulls my eyes open and my attention away. “Captain!” It's a man's voice, a gruff and hoarse one made even more so by the cold, keen edge of the night air. The man it comes from is one of Juliana's knights; the one smaller and more slender than his peers. Flint is his name, I believe. Sweat shines on his pale face, his eyes are urgent, and his body tense. He comes to a stumbling halt a handful of steps from Juliana and bends to gasp for breath, hands braced against his knees. “I – there's been – we need –” he pants.
“Catch your breath, Dary,” Juliana tells him. She hides her surprise well. He nods and waves. Sweat drops from his hair and skin like leftover rain from the limbs of trees. She waits, impatience hidden in the fists she tuck behind her back. His breathing slows, and it is then that she asks, “What's happened?”
“Hull sent me,” he says, then swallows. He straightens up and takes a long, deep breath. “It's the mayor, ma'am. He's dead. Throat's been cut.”
Clarke gasps. One hand flies to her mouth, the other to the hollow of her throat. No magic comes to light in her piece of ice. A gesture of comfort, to help herself feel safe. Juliana's crooked nose flares, her gloves creaking as her fists tighten. “Where?” she asks, demands, in a rock-slide growl.
“In his own bed,” Flint answers.
“Hull's still there?”
“Yes.”
She nods. “Good. Who else knows?”
“Family,” Flint tells her. “They're the ones who found him when Hull came calling. The screaming woke the neighbors, who woke up – their – neighbors, so by now...” he shrugs. “Probably too many.”
Juliana's jaw flexes. Between the thunderhead drop of her brow and their already narrow nature, her blue-dark eyes are all but vanished. “Shit,” she hisses, and it seems to be all the complaining she allows herself. “All right. Flint, you're to escort these two back to the inn. See them safely to our room, then I want you back at the mayor's house.”
Flint nods, “Ma'am.” Then, almost hesitantly, he ventures to ask, “How bad's it gonna get?”
Juliana lets out a sigh. “Four murders in only a few months, each one tied to a group of killers and thieves everyone thought was gone. Now two more in as many days, the mayor in his own house, his family right there?” She shakes her head. “How bad do you think, Flint?”
He doesn't answer. Not with words. The grim look on his face is answer enough.